


Treasures of the Heart

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [77]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aging, Anxiety, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Human, Insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: You spot a few grey hairs in the mirror, and it sparks a kind of crisis in you. Loki helps.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [77]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 14
Kudos: 162





	Treasures of the Heart

You knew this was coming. It had happened to your mom when she was still in high school and, to hear her tell it, it was the absolute end of her world. Thus far, you had escaped it for most of your life, but that didn’t stop you from studying yourself in the mirror for a little too long every once in a while. And today you found what you were looking for.

Your hair was going silver. 

There still wasn’t much, just a strand or two here or there. It was still early enough that, if you wanted, you could pull them out with tweezers and go on with your life. You knew that it was just an old wives’ tale that two more would grow in its place. It was hair, not a mythical Hydra. Your hand did hover over your tweezers for a few moments as you considered it but, ultimately, you let it be. Maybe your fear of female pattern baldness was greater than your fear of having grey hair.

At breakfast, it weighed on you a little more heavily than you would have liked to admit. You thought that you’d never been overly wrapped-up in your appearance. Even during your adolescence, you rarely let any kind of teenage self-consciousness keep you from doing what you wanted to do. It was a struggle, sure, but your friends had always exclaimed over how confident you were, and fearless. It kind of became your thing. Hell, it was that so-called fearlessness that had led you to apply for the job at Stark Industries, and now you were here.

Loki was at the table already, but his back was to you. You studied the back of his head, his beautiful black hair, and realized, maybe for the first time, that he was not going to age with you. Asgardians could live for thousands of years, he’d told you that himself. And you would have maybe a hundred, if you were really lucky. On the off-chance that he stuck with you that long, what would your relationship even look like at the end of your life? Soon enough, you’d be mistaken for his mother. And then his grandmother.

Jesus.

You wanted to go back to bed.

Before you could, though, Loki noticed your presence and turned to look at you. It was hard to feel too hideous when he looked at you like that. His face softened, and those big blue-green eyes filled with unmistakable adoration. He gave you a small smile, a secret smile, and you felt yourself smile back. On a good day, that Look was all it took to bring you to him, to make you settle yourself in his lap and smother his perfect face with kisses. Today, there was still that nagging in the back of your mind that kept you frozen in place.

That didn’t escape his notice. Of course not. You watched his brow knit together, and then he tilted his head at you. When he looked at you like that, you knew he was trying to figure you out. He was smart. Intuitive. It was hard to say for sure whether he’d be able to figure out exactly what was bothering you, but you knew that he was likely to get pretty close. You forced yourself to move to the counter to pour yourself some coffee and toast a bagel. Your mouth was too dry for you to really want to eat anything, but it was an excuse to turn your back on him, at least.

Just as you pushed down the lever on the toaster, you felt his hands on your hips. He caressed you like he always did. When he touched you, it was like he was praying. There was often a reverence in his fingertips that seemed to go beyond simply loving you. He squeezed you gently and pulled you a little off-balance so you had no choice but to lean into him. He rested his chin on your shoulder and purred into your ear: “Good morning, love of mine.”

“Morning!” Even to your own ears, your voice sounded a little bit wobbly. How were you going to try to cover this up? There was almost no hiding from Loki and, though he was perfectly considerate when you snapped at him and told him that you really didn’t want to talk about it, you hated doing that. He’d try to hide the sadness in his eyes, or the worry, and that only ever made you feel worse.

His hands roamed your body. He kept one wrapped firmly around your middle and allowed the other to travel up to trail along your arm. Goosebumps erupted in the wake of his touch and you tried not to shiver against him. How many more years could you realistically have of him touching you like this? He definitely wouldn’t be interested when you were an old lady, and that was fine. Maybe you wouldn’t even want him to be interested at that point. You tried not to think about being sixty, seventy, eighty, and watching him undress before you. He’d still look the same. Even standing here in your regular body, you wanted to hide yourself out of shame.

“What troubles my lady so?” His breath was warm against your ear, against your neck, and then he closed his lips and teeth around your shoulder to bite you. He was normally so careful, always erring to the side of “not enough” out of fear of one day doing it too hard and hurting you, but this morning you felt the way the edges of his teeth pinched down. It was like he was trying to force an answer out of you, in the same cautious and gentle way he always had with you.

Now, you could probably have hidden your grey hairs from him for quite a while still. You only had a few, and he might not notice them on his own at all. But this felt like something that was going to gnaw at you for a while, and you didn’t want him to worry more than he needed to. You sighed a little harder than you meant to and reached up to play with his hair. His perfect, glossy, raven-black hair.

“I’m going grey,” you said. “My hair. I’m getting old.”

He laughed and kissed your shoulder as though he thought you were joking, but, when you did not join him, he lifted his head. “Where? I can’t see anything.”

You didn’t really want to show him. You kind of wished you could go back in time and think quickly enough to come up with some kind of believable lie. But instead you turned around in his arms and indicated the general area on your head where you’d spotted the greys this morning. “In here somewhere. There aren’t a lot, but they’re there, and I can’t ignore them.” 

Loki studied the top of your head. You felt him put his hands in your hair, part it gently as he searched. You knew as soon as he spotted them. He stopped stroking your head and snorted once, quietly. “Darling, three grey hairs hardly mean you’re going to wither away before me.”

“Three?!” You’d only counted two! For the briefest of moments, your brain convinced you that you were getting more grey hairs with every passing second, but then the rational side of your brain took over and reminded you that that was stupid.

He leaned forward, then, to press a kiss to the top of your head, and held you tightly in his arms. “It’s nothing to fear, love. If anything, it’s something to be proud of. Your mortal body has taken your normal, average hair and replaced it with hair of purest silver. It’s like magic. Growing up, I heard countless tales of witches and sorcerers whose abilities shone through in hair like yours.”

That could easily have been a lie, but you let yourself believe it anyway. A people who lived so long before signs of aging could take them might actually hold their elders in higher esteem. It wasn’t hard to believe that their uncommonness could lead to children’s stories about their power. It didn’t exactly make you feel any better to imagine a child Loki revering your elderly self, but you could appreciate the fact that he thought it might.

He pulled back to get a good look at you, and he must have read your skepticism in your face because he immediately crushed you against his chest in another embrace. “Something other than hair is troubling you, my love. What is it?”

It was really too early in the morning for this. You regretted ever saying anything to him. If you’d been able to sneak away to the bedroom, maybe you could have composed yourself and kept this out of sight for a little while longer. But he took your hands in his and guided you into a slow dance right there in the kitchen, with no music except whatever moved his limbs. 

He was smart. The movement provided enough of a distraction that it was hard for you to avoid telling him. You pressed your forehead against his chest to hide your face. “I’m going to get _old_. And if you stay with me, you’re _not_.” You wanted to amend your statement, tell him that you knew he just aged differently and that you didn’t begrudge him that in the slightest, but you couldn’t make the words come out. If he hadn’t already thought about what it would look like when you looked like an old woman and he still looked the same, you didn’t really want to hasten that realization in his mind.

“ _If_ I stay with you?” He tightened his arm around you and rested his chin on the top of your head. The sound of his voice further shamed you. By now, he had spent so much time assuring you of his love and _showing_ you his love. It wasn’t hard to tell that your uncertainty this morning hurt him.

“When I’m eighty. When I’m ninety? You’ll still be you. You’ll want to be out exploring the world, and I won’t be able to move anymore. You’ll be stuck in my old-lady apartment with me and you’ll be so _bored_.” You hadn’t meant to have any kind of crisis this morning, but the thought of him suffering inside, imprisoned while you sat by the window knitting or something made your voice crack and tremble. The dark part of your brain, the part that you regularly had to struggle with to keep it under control, chimed in with a slimy thought: Maybe he should end things with you now, so he didn’t feel trapped at the end.

“ _You’ll_ still be _you_. The woman I love. The women I would tear worlds apart to keep safe. I would do anything to stay beside you. If that means I carry you in my arms when you can’t explore with me anymore, then that’s what I’ll do.” He sounded convinced of what he was saying, which was nice, but it only made you hurt worse. He shouldn’t have to. He should be paired off with a golden, glowing Asgardian woman who could age with him, not before him. You hated yourself for the hot tear that slipped down your cheek, but you couldn’t stop it. He said your name like he wanted you to look at him but you held fast to him so he couldn’t pull away. Not now. Please.

He gave you your privacy for a few moments, and it was enough to mostly get control of your tears. This was so fucking stupid. Two—no, _three_ —grey hairs and you were acting like you were dying today. After some time, however, he pulled back and cupped your face to make you look up at him. He brushed his thumbs along your cheeks to dry the last of your tears and smiled faintly at you. He looked almost as upset as you felt. 

“My Aesir form, this face you know, it’s only an illusion. It covers my true Jotunn form. You know that, right?” He studied your face and allowed you to nod miserably in his hands. “I can change it as I want to. When you are eighty, I can look one hundred. We can be old people together. If you’ll allow me to, it would be an honor to sit beside you and hold your yarn.” He ventured a smile and, though that dark, awful part of your brain wanted to refuse, wanted to insist that he would still be so young and bored, the rest of you wanted to let this make you feel better. He must have seen the struggle in your face. “Watch.”

And you did. Fine lines appeared on his face, around his eyes on and on his forehead, and you watched as he made them deepen and grow. Grey streaked through his hair until it had all turned white. Loki was aging himself before your very eyes. But he was still gorgeous. He looked distinguished: old and wise and powerful. Rather than making you feel bad about your future old-person self, it made you feel better. If he could look this good, maybe you could look alright, at least. 

“There. Now that I am an old man, will _you_ leave me?” He even sounded the part: his voice was deeper, almost hoarse.

You shook your head. How could you leave him? Even if he remained in this form forever, he was still your Loki. As long as he kept looking at you with eyes that shone with that same sweet affection, he would be yours and you would be his. Something clicked in you, then, and it became easier to understand how he felt. You might have lowered your gaze, if his hands weren’t still cupping your cheeks. “I get it now.”

“I am glad for it.” You watched him de-age back into his present-day self, and then he sighed and pulled you in close again. “Treasure of my heart, I will keep you forever. I will be right here.”

And despite all this, despite your crisis and your uncertainty and your fear, you believed him.


End file.
